Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6)

Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time #6) Page 127

For some reason he looked up at the great vaulted ceiling, with its colored windows depicting battles and queens, alternating with the White Lion. Those more than life-size women seemed to stare at him, in disapproval, wondering what he was doing there. Imagination, of course, but why? Because he had learned about Tigraine? Imagination, or madness?

“Someone has come I think you should see,” Bashere said at his elbow, and Rand jerked away from the women overhead. Had he really been glaring back at them? Bashere had one of his horsemen with him, a taller fellow—not hard to be, beside Bashere—with a dark beard and mustaches, his tilted eyes green.

“Not unless it’s Elayne,” Rand said, more harshly than he meant, “or somebody with proof the Dark One is dead. I am going to Cairhien this morning.” He had had no such intention until the words left his mouth. Egwene was there. And the queens overhead were not. “It’s been weeks since I was there last. If I don’t keep an eye on them, some lord or lady will claim the Sun Throne behind my back.” Bashere looked at him strangely. He was explaining too much.

“As you say, but you will want to see this man first. He says he comes from Lord Brend, and I think he speaks truth.” The Aiel were on their feet in the instant; they knew who used that name.

For Rand’s part, he stared at Bashere in surprise. The last thing he expected was an emissary from Sammael. “Bring him in.”

“Hamad,” Bashere said with a jerk of his head, and the younger Saldaean trotted away.

A few minutes later Hamad returned with a knot of Saldaeans warily guarding a fellow in their midst. At first glance nothing about the man accounted for their caution. With no weapon visible, he wore a long gray coat with a raised collar, and a curly beard but no mustache, both in the Illianer fashion. He had a stub of a nose and a wide, grinning mouth. As he came closer, though, Rand realized that grin never altered by a hair. The man’s whole face seemed frozen in that one mirthful expression. By contrast, his dark eyes stared out of that mask, swimming with fear.

At ten paces, Bashere raised his hand, and the guard halted. The Illianer, staring at Rand, did not seem to notice until Hamad presented a sword point to his chest, making him stop or be run through. He only glanced at the slightly serpentine blade, then returned to staring at Rand with those terrified eyes in that grinning face. His hands hung at his sides, twitching as much as his face was still.

Rand started to close the distance, but abruptly Sulin and Urien were there, not exactly blocking his way, yet positioned so that he would have to push between them.

“I wonder what has been done to him?” Sulin said, studying the fellow. A number of Maidens and Red Shields had come out from the columns, some even veiled. “If he is not Shadowspawn, he is touched by the Shadow.”

“One like that might do things we cannot know,” Urien said. He was one of those with a scarlet strip of cloth around his temples. “Kill with a touch, perhaps. A pretty message that would be to send an enemy.”

Neither looked at Rand, not directly, but he nodded. Perhaps they were right. “How are you called?” he asked. Sulin and Urien moved a step to either side when they saw he would stay where he was.

“I do come from . . . from Sammael,” the man said woodenly through that grin. “I do bring a message for . . . for the Dragon Reborn. For you.”

Well, that was direct enough. Was he a Darkfriend, or just some poor soul Sammael had trapped in one of the nastier weavings Asmodean had talked about? “What message?” Rand said.

The Illianer’s mouth worked, struggled. What came out bore no relation to the voice he had used before. It was deeper, full of confidence, in a different accent. “We will stand on different sides, you and I, come the day of the Great Lord’s Return, but why should we kill each other now and leave Demandred and Graendal to contest for the world over our bones?” Rand knew that voice, in one of those scraps from Lews Therin that had settled in his mind. Sammael’s voice. Lews Therin snarled wordlessly. “Already you have much to digest,” the Illianer went on—or Sammael did. “Why bite off more? And hard chewing, even if you don’t find Semirhage or Asmodean taking you from behind while you are busy with it. I propose a truce between us, a truce until the Day of Return. If you do not move against me, I will not against you. I will pledge not to move east beyond the Plains of Maredo, nor further north than Lugard in the east or Jehannah in the west. You see, I leave the greater share by far to you. I do not claim to speak for the rest of the Chosen, but at least you know you have nothing to fear from me, or out of the lands I hold. I will pledge not to aid them in anything they do against you, nor to help them defend against you. You have done well so far in removing the Chosen from the field. I have no doubt you will continue to do well, better than before, knowing your southern flank is safe and the others fight without my aid. I suspect that on the Day of Return, there will be only you and I, as it should be. As it was meant to be.” The man’s teeth clicked shut, hidden behind that frozen grin. His eyes looked near madness.

Rand stared. A truce with Sammael? Even if he could have trusted the man to keep it, even if it meant one danger set aside until all the others were dealt with, it also meant leaving countless thousands to Sammael’s mercy, a quality the man had never had. He felt rage sliding across the surface of the Void, and realized he had seized saidin. That torrent of searing sweetness and freezing filth seemed to echo his anger. Lews Therin. Well enough that he should be mad in his madness. The echo resonated with his own fury till he could not tell one from the other.

“Take this message back to Sammael,” he said coldly. “Every death he has caused since waking, I lay at his feet and call due. Every murder he has ever done or caused, I lay at his feet and call due. He escaped justice in the Rorn M’doi, and at Nol Caimaine, and Sohadra. . . .” More of Lews Therin’s memories, but the pain of what had been done there, the agony of what Lews Therin’s eyes had seen, burned across the Void as if Rand’s. “. . . But I will see justice done now. Tell him, no truce with the Forsaken. No truce with the Shadow.”

The messenger lifted a spasming hand to wipe sweat from his face. No, not sweat. His hand came away red. Crimson droplets oozed from his pores, and he trembled head to foot. Hamad gasped and stepped back, and he was not the only one. Bashere knuckled his mustaches with a grimace, and even the Aiel stared. Painted red, the Illianer collapsed in a convulsing heap, blood spreading around him in a dark, glistening pool